Brenda—or Eleanor—stood up, her eyes narrowing as she clutched her pearl necklace. “Arthur, please. This is highly inappropriate. This is private property. I am the registered owner of this apartment, and if you don’t leave immediately, I will call the police.”
“Call them,” I challenged, stepping closer until I was standing right across the coffee table from David. “Call the police, Brenda Higgins.”
The mention of her real name hit the room like a bomb. The woman’s aristocratic facade instantly shattered, replaced by the hard, vicious sneer of a career criminal. She looked at David, silent panic passing between them.
“You think you’re clever, don’t you?” David said, his voice dropping its charming cadence, revealing the pathetic, sniveling coward underneath. He stood up, trying to match my height, but he was trembling. “So you found out. So what? The paperwork is airtight, old man. Sofía signed everything. The assets are legally moved. In exactly ten minutes, the auditor from the lending firm will be here, I’ll sign the final papers, and we’ll be gone. There is nothing you can do. If you touch us, your precious reputation will be dragged through the mud, and I’ll make sure the courts take Valentina away from Sofía forever. I have a recorded video of your daughter looking hysterical and unstable from last month. It’ll look great in a custody hearing.”
Hearing him threaten my granddaughter was the final straw.
Before anyone in the room could react, I reached across the table, grabbed David by his silk collar, and slammed his face hard into the marble coffee table. The sound of his nose breaking echoed through the apartment. He screamed, clutching his bloody face as he collapsed onto the rug.
“David!” Brenda shrieked, rushing toward me, but Elena instantly intercepted her, pinning her arms behind her back.
“You listen to me, you piece of garbage,” I hissed, leaning over David as he groaned in agony, blood pooling beneath him. “You are going to sign the reversal deeds right now. Julian has them ready. You are going to sign over every offshore account, every cent you stole from my daughter, or you will not leave this room alive.”
David looked up at me through swollen, bloodshot eyes, a terrifying, manic laugh escaping his lips. “You… you think you’ve won, Arthur? You think this is just about a three-million-dollar loan?”
He coughed, spitting blood onto the white carpet.
“The syndicate… the people I borrowed the money from… they aren’t just a bank, you old fool. They are the Petrov syndicate. The Russian mob. And I didn’t just borrow money from them using this apartment as collateral. I used your company’s logistics network as a guarantee for their next shipment. I forged your signature on a shipping manifest last week. If I don’t sign the final papers tonight, or if I try to back out, they don’t just take the apartment. They take Vance Enterprises. They will liquidate your entire shipping fleet to cover my debt. They are already on their way up here right now.”
My breath hitched. My shipping fleet? Forged manifests?
Before I could process the sheer scale of the trap David had set, the digital lock on the front door beeped again.
But it wasn’t a green light. The door wasn’t opened with a key.
BOOM.
The heavy oak door was violently blown off its hinges, flying across the foyer and shattering against the wall.
Four men dressed in tactical black gear, carrying suppressed submachine guns, flooded into the room. Leading them was a tall, pale man with a scarred neck and eyes as cold as death. He scanned the room, his gaze landing on David bleeding on the floor, then on me.
The pale man raised his weapon, pointing it directly at my chest.
“David Miller,” the man said in a thick, low Russian accent. “You told us the old man wouldn’t be a problem. You told us the logistics network was already ours.”
He shifted his gaze to me, his finger tightening on the trigger.
“It seems you lied to us, David. And the Petrov family does not tolerate liars… or liabilities.”
Leave a Comment